The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatus for fabricating flexible thin glass into free-form shapes.
Conventional manufacturing techniques for cutting flexible plastic substrates have been developed, where the plastic substrates employ a plastic base material laminated with one or more polymer films. These laminated structures are commonly used in flexible packaging associated with photovoltaic (PV) devices, organic light emitting diodes (OLED), liquid crystal displays (LCD) and patterned thin film transistor (TFT) electronics, mostly because of their relatively low cost and demonstrably reliable performance.
Although the aforementioned flexible plastic substrates have come into wide use, they nevertheless exhibit poor characteristics in connection with at least providing a moisture barrier and providing very thin structures (indeed, the structures are relatively thick owing to the properties of plastic materials).
Accordingly, there are needs in the art for new methods and apparatus for fabricating a flexible substrate for use in, for example, PV devices, OLED devices, LCDs, TFT electronics, etc., particularly where the substrate is to provide a moisture barrier and the substrate is to be formed into a free-form shape.